Cavaliers Cricket Club, Colchester, Essex, England

30 April 2013

Spectacular collapse overshadows encouraging performance

For long
periods of the game Cavalier Seconds were well in this contest with cup winners
Gosfield until the game finished abruptly in the 30th over of the chase. Cavs
lost their last 4 wickets for no runs in one over leaving a bewildered Dan
Smith stranded on 25 not out wondering "what just happened?" Serial
not out merchant Tony was unable to add to his 92 previous unbeaten innings
when he was the unlucky 3rd victim of a hat-trick that finished off the
innings in an unseemly hurry.

Earlier a
decent bowling performance restricted Gosfield to 179 despite managing only 4
wickets. Jon W and James Bardell, one of the 3 debutantes, produced
good opening spells keeping the openers to 3 an over. First change & fellow
debutante "Sid" Palamarri continued the good bowling in spite of
struggling with his run up into the wind but it was left to spin twins Dan S
and Tony to begin to chip away at the top order. Is Greg Moncrieff the newest
golden arm in the club? His variations quickly accounted for danger man Andy
Rose thanks to a smartly taken catch from an all action Dan. James B returned
to finish his 10 and was extremely unlucky not to pick up at least a couple of
wickets. All of which meant opener Gary Dicker carried his bat for a well paced
77.

The Cavs
reply got off to a crawling start as first Asif played back to Rose to be
trapped LBW (1 of four in the innings) and Ed got bogged down by an accurate
salvo from his counterpart Richardson. Once Ed played all around the first
loose ball on offer (kicking the ball in frustration further than he had
managed to hit it with the bat) the innings gained some much needed impetus
from Greg's (19) uncomplicated stroke play and Viv pouncing on anything short.
Despite Viv (37) falling to an "orange juice" shot against a young leg
spinner straight after drinks the game still seemed on as Cavs needed less than
100 in the last 20 overs with Dan at the crease with Luke. This was until young
Sam Little began his devastating performance, taking 6 for 5 in
3 overs.

All in all a promising
start to the season with one or two still needing to blow away some early
season cobwebs away. No doubt there is more than one set of aching muscles
being nursed as the new week begins...